In the first half of 2025, approximately $2.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in 290 cases, exceeding the total loss recorded in 2024.
The breached wallets account for a share of losses totaling over $1.7 billion across 34 incidents, according to Certik’s latest Hack3D report shared with crypto.news. The phishing attacks continued, siphoning over $410 million in 132 cases, but the code vulnerability caused more than $283 million in 114 cases.
Exit fraud and price manipulation were less frequent during this period, but still remained pronounced, resulting in nearly $20 million in losses. Access Control Exploits accounted for $42 million in damages.
In particular, the total losses for the first six months of 2025 are already above the $2.42 billion recorded in all of 2024. After adjusting for returns and frozen funds, the net loss is $2.29 billion, exceeding the adjusted total of $1.98 billion last year.
A significant portion of this year’s losses, about 72%, or $1.78 billion, comes from the first quarter’s Buybit Hack and the second quarter’s Cetus Protocol exploit. Excluding these, H1’s loss was approximately $690 million.
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The first quarter of 2025 included a loss of $1.67 billion, exceeding the second quarter’s $881 million. The pace of the attacks slowed significantly in the second quarter, but some major incidents still contributed to significant losses.
Phishing was the widest attack vector in the second quarter, accounting for more than $395 million in 52 incidents. Code vulnerabilities and access control weaknesses continued, resulting in losses of $235.7 million and $36.1 million, respectively. The wallet’s compromise that controlled the first quarter resulted in a loss of $112 million from nine incidents in the second quarter.
While the Bibit violations remained the most harmful incident of the year, the second quarter saw several other high-value violations, including protocol exploits and infrastructure compromises. These include Cetus’ $225.6 million exploitation, a $89.1 million hack for Iran’s Nobitex Exchange and a $16.1 million attack on Alex Lab.
Other incidents, including Bitopro, Cork Protocol, Kiloex, and Zksync-based projects, were primarily the result of defective smart contracts, infrastructure violations, or breached wallets.
Ethereum is the most targeted blockchain, with over $1.58 billion in 164 cases, with Bitcoin second in number, and over $373 million in 10 cases.
Certik said $187 million of stolen funds were returned early in the year, bringing the adjusted total loss to just $2.28 billion. Of this, $180 million was recovered in the second quarter alone.
As previously reported by Crypto.News, another medium-term analysis by blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs estimated $2.1 billion in cryptocurrency losses in 75 cases over the same period.
read more: Crypto spy. How Nobitex Hacks Will Be Lead to Israeli Spy Arrests: Report
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